Air India Flight 245 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight that crashed into Mont Blanc, France, on 3 November 1950. On the morning of 3 November 1950, the Lockheed L-749A ConstellationMalabar Princess registration VT-CQP, piloted by chief pilot Alan R. Saint 34 Years, British and co-pilot V. Y. Korgaokar, carrying 40 passengers and 8 crew on the route Bombay-Istanbul-Geneva-London, while flying over France, crashed into the Mont Blanc mountain, killing all on board.[1][2][3]

The last transmission from the aircraft, received by controllers at Grenoble and Geneva, was "I am vertical with Voiron, at 4700 meters altitude." at 10:43 a.m.

The "Malabar Princess" hit the face of the Rocher de la Tournette 4,677 m (15,344 ft) on the French side of Mont Blanc.[2] Stormy weather prevented immediate rescue efforts; debris was located by a Swiss plane on 5 November, rescue parties reached it another two days later.[2] There were no survivors.

Sixteen years later, Air India Flight 101 crashed in almost exactly the same spot.[4] In September 2013, a climber discovered a cache of jewellery that is speculated to have been aboard one of these two flights.[5]

In the 2001 movie Amélie, the title character reads a newspaper article about alpinists finding, by chance, a mailbag on Mont Blanc and later realising it came from the Malabar Princess that crashed 40 years earlier. This news inspires Amélie to do good to the lonely concierge, by faking a final love letter from her late husband, supposedly found inside that mailbag.

The 2004 movie Malabar Princess is about a young boy called Tom who is sent to live with his grandfather in the French Alps after his mother dies on an excursion with her husband. Tom becomes friends with Benoît, and the two search for the remains of the Malabar Princess.[6]